(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a dose indicator and to a device for dispensing fluid products which comprises said indicator.
(2) Description of Related Art
In the area of fluid product dispensing devices intended to dispense several doses, in particular in the area of sprays, numerous systems have been developed intended to indicate the number of dispensed doses or the number of doses remaining to be dispensed.
Most of these systems have numerous drawbacks. For example they are generally designed with several toothed wheels forming cogs whose number is dependent upon the quantity of doses to be counted. Therefore these counters or indicators may become highly complex, cumbersome and hence costly to manufacture and assemble. Also, the indication is generally given in figures which are often difficult to read by the user, especially when the dispensing devices are intended to dispense a large number of doses, e.g. up to 200 doses. Similarly, all current dose counter or indication systems cannot be used by persons with sight problems, by blind persons in particular. Another major disadvantage lies in the fact that existing counters generally require an assembly procedure for the dispensing device which is modified through the presence of the counter, and therefore differs from usual assembly procedure. This increases the complexity of the device and consequently entails a higher cost.
In addition, one very important safety requirement is to prevent any risk of under-counting i.e. failure to count full or partial dispensing of the product. To avoid this risk, the actuation of the counter must be made during the motion of the dispensing member, in particular of the dispensing valve, which occurs before product expelling is initiated. The initial motion distance is generally very short, typically in the order of 1 to 1.5 mm and the various size tolerances of the device reduce this distance to a few tenths of millimetres. Such a short actuation distance makes actuation of the counter difficult and may involve the use of complex mechanisms to guarantee functional counting.